An Experiment in Being Present

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. I'm actually really excited about it. I've come a long way in my life, and despite the usual ups and downs, I'm pretty happy. I like what I do, I have terrific friends (even if they're scattered all over the globe), I've done an exceptional amount of travel for an American, and I have an awesome partner to share it with.

But, despite my affinity for technology, I've become a little tired of how a lot of my friendships (aside from very close friends) have shifted into a torrent of Likes, Favorites, and emoji. It's awesome we have this technology, but when my relationships primarily becomes liking your hipster burger photo or that cute cat video you reposted... it's just not making me happy anymore. Nevermind the absolute timesuck that social media can be.

I don't begrudge anyone who is happy with that. It totally works for some people, or maybe they can balance it better than I've been able to... but I personally need a change. So I'm using my 30th birthday to experiment with my life, starting with deleting my Facebook.

Yes, deleting. I've gone back and forth on just disabling it... but seriously, I need to delete it. I'll stay on Twitter for now, because I find it useful, but Facebook has just shifted in a way I don't enjoy anymore. Nevermind the host of privacy issues with it and UI/UX changes they've made over the years that I disagree with.

Ultimately, I'm hoping this forces me to have more real conversations with my friends. Maybe it'll be fewer friends, but if the quality of those friendships increase, then that's what really matters to me.

And maybe instead of getting sucked down the rabbit hole of social media and endless timeline scrolling, I'll read more books. And maybe do a 365 day photo project for my 30th year (something I've wanted to do for awhile). And maybe a lot of things.

Or maybe this experiment will fail miserably, but as I've long said, I'd rather regret trying something than regret not trying it at all.